


My Patience Keeps Me Plaintive, My High Hopes Keep Me Alone

by jessa_anna



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Misues of Tarot Cards and Reading
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 11:51:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessa_anna/pseuds/jessa_anna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek had no idea what he was doing here. He didn’t know what exactly possessed him to pick up his phone this morning after he saw the ad in the paper, <i>Mrs. Rita’s Tarot Readings and Future Divination. First Time Consultation: $20 </i>. No, that’s not exactly true. He knew what possessed him. It was too many days, even months, wondering if Stiles’ emails were supposed to be flirty or if he was just being happy. It was too many times his heart skipped a beat when Stiles mentioned coming back to Beacon Hills after college. It was too many times his mood had been lightened by hope when Stiles mentioned the end of another relationship. It was too many stab wounds in his heart when Stiles’ next boyfriend looked and/or acted more like Derek than the last. It was too many dates and short relationships that he had destroyed because they hadn’t been enough like Stiles. He had been on the knife edge of not knowing for too long. He needed answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Patience Keeps Me Plaintive, My High Hopes Keep Me Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own none of these. Jeff Davis is responsible for creating _Teen Wolf_ , and I just have fun playing with them.
> 
> The title is taken from The Gin Blossom's "Mrs. Rita." (Here's a link to them playing the 1994 Farm Aide concert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaRF_uDDMIU, if you are interested.) The song really influenced this story!
> 
> Also, this is unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine. However, I really would appreciate it if you would point them out so I could fix them (Just please don't be mean)! 
> 
> And I know nothing about Tarot cards--I used a guide I found online for the meanings and made up a spread. Please don't take offense if I screwed it up--I very, very briefly researched it. I know that it is probably far more complicated than I show it to be.

Derek had no idea what he was doing here. He didn’t know what exactly possessed him to pick up his phone this morning after he saw the ad in the paper, _Mrs. Rita’s Tarot Readings and Future Divination. First Time Consultation: $20_. No, that’s not exactly true. He knew what possessed him. It was too many days, even months, wondering if Stiles’ emails were supposed to be flirty or if he was just being happy. It was too many times his heart skipped a beat when Stiles mentioned coming back to Beacon Hills after college. It was too many times his mood had been lightened by hope when Stiles mentioned the end of another relationship. It was too many stab wounds in his heart when Stiles’ next boyfriend looked and/or acted more like Derek than the last. It was too many dates and short relationships that he had destroyed because they hadn’t been enough like Stiles. He had been on the knife edge of not knowing for too long. He needed answers.

So he made the call, made an appointment, and now found himself standing on the porch of tiny red house, screwing up his courage to knock.

Just as he raised his hand, the door flew open and a short woman with her hair in a tight gray bun stood in the doorway glaring at him.

“Are you going to stand there forever or are you going to come in?” she asked before turning and walking back into the house. 

Derek was apprehensive, to say the least. It wasn’t often that someone got the drop on him, and to have that person look like the cartoon granny from the Tweety Bird cartoons was plain disconcerting. But as soon as he thought about that, his brain went to that extremely long conversation he had held with Stiles two years ago about the deeper meaning behind the Looney Tunes. Just thinking about that conversation brought up everything he liked and was confused by with Stiles. His reason for being her hadn’t changed, so he screwed his courage up and walked into the house.

It was definitely a grandmother’s house. He walked down the hallway to the room straight ahead where he could see the old woman sitting at a wooden table. The walls had pink rose wallpaper and pictures that alternated between needlepoint expressions, pictures of grandchildren, and blue plates. 

“You’re my 1:30,” she said. Her hands shuffled a deck of cards with roses climbing over the back.

“Yeah, I guess,” he said as he slid into a chair across from her.

Her hands stilled, and she looked over at him.

“You guess? You mean you aren’t sure if you’re the slightly angry young man who called me this morning for a tarot reading?” she asked.

Derek fought off a blush while he looked at his hands lying so still on the table. 

“Yeah,” he said, “I am he.”

“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it, sonny? Just take a little responsibility, and everything’s better, right?” the old woman said.

He nodded, “Yes, yes, it is.”

“Good,” she said. She shuffled the cards into a pile and pushed it towards him. “Cut the deck twice,” she said.

Derek picked up the deck and set in his left palm. He slid the fingers of his right hand down the sides of the cards until they were a little more than a third of the way down. He pinched in at sides of the cards, lifted them, and set the smaller deck down on the table in front of him. Again, he slid his fingers down the deck until they almost reached the bottom. Then he once again created a smaller deck and set them on the table. He put the last deck on the table.

When they were in front of him, the old woman reached over and pulled the piles to her. She pulled one card from the top of each stack and then the two bottom cards in the stacks he had made. She spread them out before her, two across the top, one in the middle, and two at the bottom. She flipped them over and stared at them.

Derek’s gut clenched with nerves at her intense gaze. He was a born werewolf, had taken on kanimas, alphas, and so many other mythical creatures that an old woman gazing at cards making him nervous seemed almost laughable. And while Derek had been afraid when facing down each and every threat, he had never feared for more than his life. But he was risking more than that now; he was risking his heart and his loyalty and everything else that mattered to him on five cards.

“Can I ask you a question, ma’am?” Derek asked. 

“Only if you call me by my name, sonny,” she said as she stared at the cards.

“All right, Mrs. Rita,” he flashed her his flirty smile, the one that he had never known a woman to resist, “I’ve heard that there are specific layouts to the cards. I’m kind of curious in all things supernatural, and I was wondering if you would explain to me what kind of layout that is.”

“I call ‘The Doors,’” she said, “but I have no idea if that is what others call it or if others would even see this as a legitimate reading. My gut tells me to lie the cards out like this and so I do. Now look at these cards,” she tapped the top two, “These two cards are the doors into the past. First we have The Devil, the embodiment of primal instincts and, upside down like this, the disaster of your family. You were betrayed by one you thought loved you. The second card here, The Hermit, is what you were when you first came back to Beacon Hills. You were alone. Usually it has a dual meaning of peacefulness, but something tells me you weren’t peaceful back then.”

Derek nod slowly. He hadn’t been. There had been too many bad memories in Beacon Hills at first for him to be peaceful. Most of that had changed, however, when his pack had finally cemented with Scott’s, and, even more so, when he and Stiles had finally gotten together. He had known then that his pack finally had all the pieces it needed. 

“Don’t go drifting off, sonny, one of my shows is going to be on soon, so I need to finish this up.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Derek said.

She then tapped the center card. “The Tower is your present. You are caught in the moments before something major happens. You’re nervous, hopeful, and deathly, deathly afraid of what might happen. And that’s all it is, a maybe, not a surety. Nobody can assure that everything will work out for the best. Change comes no matter what.”

She moved her hand down to the last two cards. “This is your future,” she said, tapping a card “The Lovers. That one should be pretty obvious. But this is also your fate,” she tapped another card, “The High Priestess, the custodian of all secrets. Having her here means that even I can’t tell you what will happen next. Your relationship will be a risk, like every single other relationship on the planet. But, I can tell you this, the love, the love will be worth it every time.”

Derek shook his head a bit. It sounded like she had just admitted that she didn’t know what was going to happen with Stiles.

“But—,” he started to say.

“No buts, sonny. This isn’t a perfect science. I read what I see, and what I see with you is what I see with most people: one thing worth fighting for and everything else up in the air.”

Something worth fighting for, Derek knew Stiles was worth fighting for. Hell, Stiles had always been worth fighting for. But does he think the same about Derek?

“Then why do lovers come and go?” he asked as he struggled to maintain his tough appearance, frightened that she could read through it and see all his worries like she read the cards.

“Because sometimes they have to, because sometimes the only way to grow together is to grow apart first. And sometimes because they have to realize what is worth fighting for as well,” Mrs. Rita said.

Derek nodded. He stood up to pull out his wallet. As he dug around in it for his twenty dollar bill, his eyes fell on The Lovers. The card showed a young brown haired man reaching out his left hand to a blond woman standing opposite him. Her right was barely touching his, and a small burst of light was drawn around where their hands connected. Derek knew then that he had his answer. The Lovers had come up. The Lovers were connected through something so simple as their hands and yet so powerful that something emerged from it. That had always been him and Stiles. They had always been simple but powerful. And he knew they would be again.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a feeling this is going to end up as part of a series of fics based on The Gin Blossom's music. I recently got really into their songs, and now lots of ideas are spouting in my head. However, I can't figure out a title for the series. Anybody have any ideas? My only wish is that "Gin Blossoms" is somewhere in it. Please, please give me ideas. Otherwise, thanks for reading!


End file.
